Death Takes a Holiday

Death Takes a Holiday

Copyright Jose Ruiz 2010

King Baldwin, died like true royalty. The scream of combat, the clash of steel, and the thunk
of sword against flesh, as he died defending his kingdom, in an epic last stand worthy of an
action film.
His spirit rose from his body, out of habit dusted itself off, and strode forward to meet the
Grim Reaper. Baldwin’s hopes were high. He’d been wondering about this day for the last few
years, as he grew older in age, and felt giddy at finally getting a chance to meet Death himself.
Would Death bow to him? He was a king after all. Maybe even Death had to show some respect to him.
A cloaked figure suddenly appeared out of the air, and stalked towards the king. Baldwin
was suddenly unsure of himself. How did you greet Death? Saying ‘Hi, nice to meet you
Death’ and shaking his hand didn’t seem proper. Should he give him a curt nod, one king to another?
For Death must be a king, a king of the dead. Or was he? Baldwin finally just settled on standing
awkwardly and waiting for Death to make the first move.
The Grim Reaper approached, sword held in one sun tanned hand. He stopped in front of the king,
and pulled his hood down, revealing not the bony skull that the king expected, but a dark, handsome,
and above all human face. It had pale, almost white shoulder length hair, deep black eyes with twinkles
of silver in them like a star filled night sky, and a roguish smile.
King Baldwin stared in shock at this handsome young man, who couldn’t be any older than his own son.
“’Ere, you’re not Death!” he said accusingly. “Where’s Death? Where’s the Grim Reaper? I
fill gyped! Am I to just be tended to by one of his servants?”
The young man sent the king’s spirit on its way with a well aimed slice of his sword, trying to
ignore the muttered complaints as the ghost faded. With a wave of his hand, he appeared back
in his small, rather sad little house, and stared glumly at the wall length mirror.
Death didn’t like being a handsome young man. He would much rather have been your
typical, scythe wielding skeleton, that rode a horse made of bones across the midnight
skies. But that happy time was no more. The physical appearance of Death, Father Time,
Mother Nature, and dozens of others of a like nature, was determined by how humans
envisioned them. And humans once saw Death as a skeleton with a scythe, because a skeleton
was fitting to the job, and the scythe made a rather neat analogy for those people of an
agricultural turn of mind. But nine years ago, how people saw the Grim Reaper changed, when
the previous Death, made a terrible mistake. The greatest hero to walk the world, the great elf
adventurer Lady Silverlake, had fallen in love with him. It had often been said of her, that she
‘walked with death’ on her many perilous adventures. Well there was a similar saying, that
means the same thing, that goes ‘she courts death’, that was also often used concerning her
adventures. So one day, Silverlake had decided it would be fun to take the saying literally,
and had gone to the nearest funeral, where death was sure to be present, and poured her
heart out to him, looking like a complete fool to all the mourners but intriguing Death so
much, who had never had anyone ask him out on a date before, that he appeared before her
after the funeral.
The two of them decided to have lunch together, and got to talking. And Death enjoyed
himself immensely, since his job was normally so dreary, and bereft of joy. Well the two of
them decided to meet again the next day, and it was only a matter of time until they actually
fell in love, and Death the Grim Reaper, began to travel with Lady Silverlake on her many
adventures.
Inevitably, Death one day had to kill someone, while defending Silverlake. And for Death
to kill someone, for no reason at all is against the rules. It might be his job to kill people, but
they always had to die of something. They had to die of sickness, or of a mortal wound, or
old age. They couldn’t die because an angry Grim Reaper slashed them with a scythe. But
one did. And in time, several more, since Lady Silverlake’s travels tended to bring her in
conflict with the most evil of villains, who usually had their very own army (Or at the very
least, a dedicated group of thugs). And it didn’t matter that the men he killed were evil, for
who was Death to judge who died and who lived? So his powers were stripped from him,
making him a mortal human, for the rest of eternity. And in time, as humans tend to do,
Death died, defending the one he loved. Well FatherTime and the others weren’t too
awfully worried, since on the rare occasion when one of them did die, a new one would
instantly spawn to take their place. But the damage had already been done…
People could no longer imagine Death, the lover of Lady Silverlake as an icky, ugly,
skeleton. Oh no. Only the very best for Silverlake. If he was to be her boyfriend, he needed
to be handsome. So away went the bones, to be replaced by a roguishly handsome young
human body. And the scythe had to go, because what kind of adventurer really used a scythe
anyways? So it was replaced by a much more romantic weapon, a sword! And so despite the
fact that the old Death had died, and Silverlake had gone on to love someone else, people
still envisioned the Grim Reaper as a heroic and handsome young man, who only did his job
because he had to. And the new Death was stuck with the appearance whether he wanted it
or not.
He turned away from the mirror in disgust, took off his robe to reveal a dark grey tunic
beneath it, and threw both robe and sword into the corner of the room as he fell angrily into
a chair.
“Malta!” he called, “Come forth.”
Death’s servant, a sad, wispy looking girl appeared before him, and bowed low to the ground.
“Yes, master?”
“Malta, take the sword and robe for awhile. I need a break, but FatherTime will get
suspicious if he notices that no one is doing my job. So I need you to take over for a little.”
Malta just stared at him. The previous Death had hardly noticed her, but this one was making
her responsible for his job.
“Err, are you quite sure, master?”
“Yes, yes I’m sure. You’ll do fine. Now I’m leaving. I want to see the world of the living for a
change, and see what being human is all about. So I think, for a little while, I’ll be human.”
“Um, are you sure that’s wise, master?” asked Malta worriedly.
“No. But I’m doing it anyways.” He said casually, as he walked through the door, slamming
it behind him.
Malta stood still for several minutes, not sure what to do. Finally, with a shrug, she picked
up the sword and the robe, and went to work.

Death appeared in the world of Earth. He usually spent his time in the magical realm called
Kalish, but that’s where Lady Silverlake lived and he didn’t want to chance running into her.
The first thing he did was adjust his appearance to blend in with the people of New York. His
boots morphed into tennis shoes, breeches into Levis, and tunic into a t-shirt with skull and
crossbones on it. Transformation complete, Death set off into the streets of the city, ready
for anything.
Ten minutes later, Death was completely surrounded by teenage girls asking him for his
autograph.
“What is it you want?” he wailed, trying ineffectually to push them away.
“Oh Jason!” one of them sighed, starry eyed as she fell down with a swoon.
The others kept saying something about how he looked different than he did in the
Twilight movie, but he couldn’t hear since they were all shouting at once.
Finally spotting a gap, Death dived through the crowd of girls and took to his heels, not
stopping till he was several blocks away. He leaned against a telephone booth to catch
his breath, and saw several men running towards him, being chased by what looked like
city watchmen. All of the men were holding what looked like metal pipes, and the ones
being chased held large clinking bags.
Death watched in bewilderment, interested to see what would happen. The men with the
bags drew near, and one of them grabbed him, jamming one of the pipes against his neck.
“Nobody move, or this guy gets it!” the man screamed at the watchmen, as his companions
spread out around him, pipes aimed at the watchmen.
“Now don’t do anything stupid,” said one of the watchmen, stepping forward. “Put the gun
down, and everyone can walk away from this.”
“I said stand back!” the man yelled.
Death casually reached upwards, and grabbed the pipe from the man’s hand, wondering
what could possibly be so threatening about a blunt piece of metal. Didn’t these people
even have swords?
Everyone stood motionless for several seconds, staring at this civilian who was holding a
semi-automatic weapon in his hand as if he didn’t know what it was. Hostages weren’t supposed
to do that!
The bank robbers slowly lowered their guns, and put their hands on their heads. They
could handle it if the cops had guns pointed at them, since that was practically what cops
were for. But when the hostage stopped playing by the rules, and decided to turn one of
your own guns against you, that’s when it all got iffy. And the way this one was waving it
around as if he didn’t what it was, only made things worse since he could shoot anyone.
The policemen stepped forward, cuffing the bank robbers and leading them away. Chief
Maberly walked up to the somewhat confused Death, and shook his hand.
“Well done, lad. You really saved the day there.”
Death wasn’t really sure what to say, not being sure what he’d even really done, so he
just shrugged.
“Why don’t you come down to the station for the Christmas party tomorrow? I’m sure
the boys would love to thank you for helping us out.”
“Uh, what’s Christmas?”
“You know, Christmas! Jingle bells, Santa in a sleigh, that kind of thing?”
“Never heard of it.”
“You’ve never heard of Christmas?” said the chief incredulously.
“Err, no. Is it important?”
“Important? Well I’d say it’s the most important holiday of them all! People look forward
to it all year.”
The police chief’s radio buzzed, calling him back to the station. He unclipped it, barked a
short reply, and then turned towards his vehicle.
“Look, I’ve got to get back to HQ, but you make sure to drop by, Ok? We really appreciate
what you did for us.”
As the man drove off in what Death had come to learn was called a ‘car’, he pondered over
what the man had said. It was Death’s goal to learn what being a human was all about, and
apparently this ‘Christmas’ thing, was an important part of it. So Death set off through the
city to learn about Christmas.
After six hours research, as twilight descended upon the city of New York, Death had a
somewhat hazy grasp of what Christmas meant. The most important feature, aside from
snow and reindeer, appeared to be the jolly fat man named Santa. People would dress
up as this ‘Santa’ and climb down chimneys to leave presents for people they knew.
Why they did this, Death had no idea, but wanting to get into the spirit of things, he’d
made several small purchases at a costume shop. He’d made sure to bring along several
gold coins in case he needed them, and after the shop keeper’s initial confusion at seeing
some punk kid hand him thousands of dollars worth of gold coins in exchange for a twenty
dollar Santa costume, things had worked out perfectly.
So now that he was fully prepared, with a Santa outfit and a bag full of assorted toys, Death
climbed the nearest building and headed for the chimney. Normally he was supposed to only
give the toys to people he knew, but since Death didn’t know anyone he’d just settled with
picking houses at random.
As he worked his way down the all too thin chimney, Death wondered if this was really
the best idea…

Upon finally reaching the bottom of the chimney, falling the last several feet when his grip
slipped, Death was astonished to find he was not alone. There was already a man in the living
room, carefully nestling the last present under the tree with a merry ho, ho, ho. And Death
knew instantly, that this was not someone’s dad, doing this just to try and keep up with the
Johnson’s, but this was the real deal. This was Santa. Santa turned around majestically, and
gave Death a jolly smile, which turned down at the corners a little when he noticed Death
wearing a badly made Santa costume.
“Sorry bub, this house is mine. Go find your own.”
“No,” replied Death, thinking about how long it took to get down the chimney, “I’ve come
here to give these people presents, and learn about the meaning of Christmas.”
“I said get lost.” said Santa, eyes narrowing.
Death began to get angry. Who was this fat oaf to tell him to get lost? He was the Grim Reaper!
“No!” replied Death once again, this time more forcefully.
Santa took a few steps towards the fireplace, grabbing the poker and holding it menacingly,
like a professional fencer.
“I won’t tell you again,” he said quietly, all mirth gone from his face.
With a muttered oath, Death swung his bag of toys upwards, letting it fly out of his grasp
towards Santa, knocking the poker from the fat man’s hand.
Santa, using the kind of language only heard in R rated movies, leaped towards Death.
He’d been taking Judo lessons over the summer, and launched a flying death kick at the
Grim Reaper’s head, soaring through the air with deceptive speed despite his vast bulk.

Meanwhile…

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring,
not even a mouse. And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in the hopes
that Saint Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads; And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my
cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap- When from the living room there
arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. To that room I went
to see what had caused such a din, afraid that darn cat had knocked the tree over again.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but… Santa, holding a young man in a
death grip as they struggled over the presents.
“What’s going on here?” asked Mr. Smith
Death and Santa stopped struggling, and looked sheepishly around them at the ruins of
the living room. The tree was torn apart, presents spread all over the floor, sofa flipped on
its side, and most of the windows broken.
“It was his fault!” said Santa accusingly, pointing at the Grim Reaper.
“But look what you’ve done to the presents!” cried Mr. Smith in despair. “The kids were
looking forward to those all year, and you’ve just ruined Christmas for them.”
Both of them looked down at their feet in shame, images of a tearful little Timmy being
told he wouldn’t get presents this year dancing through their minds.
“Err, I think I might be able to fix it…” said Death slowly. He pulled out his remaining coins,
counting several thousand dollars worth into Mr. Smith’s hand.
Mr. Smith held up more money than he’d ever had before, and stared speechlessly at Death.
“But… the presents are still gone. I thank you for the money, but I can’t buy the kids new
ones at this time of night.”
“Then take them to Disney Land for a week,” said Death after a moment’s thought, “Make
this a Christmas they’ll truly remember.”
Mr. Smith began to cry, his joy so overwhelming at what this badly dressed Santa had done
for him.
“Thank you,” he said through his tears.
“Now wait just a moment!” said the real Santa, stepping between them. “I’m the Santa here,
not this punk. I’ll be the one giving out the presents, and I say what these kids need is stuffed
animals.”
Mr. Smith suddenly looked as if his world was about to be shattered, a wonderful trip to Disney
Land replaced by horrible hug me Elmo dolls.
“Excuse me one moment,” said Death, casually walking over to Mr. Smith’s phone, and
calling Chief Maberly at the police station.
“Hey, chief? It’s me, the guy who helped you out earlier. Could you do me a favor?”

And all was set right. Death learned the true meaning of Christmas, Santa went to jail, and
the Smith family had the best Christmas of their lives. Death bought a Christmas tree of his
own, and went home, thinking over what he’d learned, as he drank a festive mug of cocoa,
and realized how much fun Christmas could be…

THE END